Injury and muscle strain seem to come with the territory when you’re a keen sports player. Whether it’s tendonitis, damaged ligaments, strained hamstrings or even dislocation and fracture, your body takes a lot of knocks. Sports injuries can be helped to heal with osteopathy, and we’ll explore how, in this blog.
Being out of action due to muscle strain is frustrating. Having to spend time convalescing and repairing torn ligaments isn’t fun, when your friends are all off playing football, or tennis, or lifting weights at the gym.
Yet rest and repair is key to your recovery. Rushing back into the game or the gym can potentially cause more injury if you’re putting strain on an already injured area. Our osteopath, Tom Ward, specialises in sports injury. His expertise will inform the creation of the best treatment plan to speed your recovery and keep you safe.
How long does a muscle tear take to heal?
Muscles are injured when their fibres are overstretched and torn. It’s known from medical imaging that a tear in a muscle takes around 7-10 days to ‘bridge the gap’ created by the tear. Before this stage, it’s important not to stretch the muscle, but to maintain movements within a pain-free range to aid healing.
What if you don't rest and repair?
The speed of repair is influenced by several factors, including age, diet and severity of the injury. Without enough time to repair, long-term problems might result. For instance, repetitive injury and chronic inflammation.
Scar tissue forms when rigid, weaker tissue is formed instead of healthy, elastic muscle fibre. Such tissue is more likely to form when the repair process isn’t given enough time, and it will make the site of the original injury more vulnerable to repeated strain.
Four steps to take following injury
Immediately following an injury, these are the four steps you need to take. The acronym MICE will help you to remember these steps.
Mobilise
Without making sudden movements or stretching too far, try to gently move the injured area. Especially in the first few hours following an injury, this is important because it will support the regeneration of muscle fibre and minimise the formation of scar tissue.
Ice
Apply a cold pack to the affected area for 10-15 minutes every hour, for the first 48 hours if you can. You can use ice, such as a pack of frozen peas, but wrap it in a tea towel to prevent burning the skin. Applying cold to the injury will significantly reduce tissue bleeding and will help soothe the pain.
Compression & Elevation
Using a compression bandage and elevating an injured limb will reduce swelling and aid healing.
Osteopathy to help heal muscle strain
Don’t struggle alone with a muscle strain or repetitive sports injury. Tom Ward is available at our Epsom clinic for consultations and can support you to heal injury with a tailored rehabilitation programme.
Tom specialises in sports injury rehabilitation and says “I see a lot of patients experiencing muscle strain after playing sports or lifting weights in the gym. Long-term pain and inflammation can impact their confidence and their enjoyment of sport. It’s important to rest and repair after injury, and to get some help to speed this process up in a way that prevents future injury”
